Top 10 wine trends for 2014

6. Evolving communication means more direct communication

The wine world will continue to adapt to the revolution in communication, but find itself ever more in the position of having to speak directly to the consumer as the fragmentation in media channels continues. As wine critic Jamie Goode speculates, “There has been an explosion of the creation of content, but this increase hasn’t necessarily been matched by people’s consumption.”

This suggests that more people, via more platforms, are chasing a finite level of reader attention and thus as saturation is reached the content providers (plusmarketers and advertisers) are fighting ever more ferociously for a smaller slice of the consumer attention pie.

“The rise of social media, blogging and specialist websites means that an involved wine consumer has access to really good wine content, most of it free,” says Goode. The downside is that
specialist channels typically only appeal to those who already have specialist interest and the decline in generalist wine columns, those which may catch the attention of a browsing reader, serves to reinforce the notion that wine is the complex domain of the few.

To reach new audiences, then, producers and the retailers of their wines will increasingly look for fresh ways to engage consumers directly. Social media channels and blogging are certainly playing a part, Breaking down the Great Wall of wine wine trends with winemakers and wineries striving to interact directly with wine drinkers. With wine writers typically focused on the 5% or so of sales at the higher end, communication will continue to become increasingly polarised between the specialist and the generalist, with ever more emphasis on the trade’s role in presenting wine in an engaging and nonwine speak way.